How many page views did your website get from a press release?

[10JQKAs]

How many page views did your webpage (not press release) get, for how much, and from where? Additionally, how many backlinks did you receive?

I'm considering PRWeb's $360 release, but am primarily interested in driving users to my landing page. I'm also weighing the option of going with the much cheaper $25 press release from WebWire and spending the difference on Social Media. StumbleUpon/Facebook can land page views for .01-.10, not to mention tens of thousands of impressions.

I realize there's going to be a wide range of data, but anything would be helpful.

[AlanMosley]

i doubt if you will get $360 worth of traffic. I think if you are going to spend money, you will be better of going for PPC, at least you know you will have to get clicks or you want have to pay.
Don't be suprised if you spend $360 and get nothing at all.

[EGOL]

Go to these press release sites and look at what is being promoted.  Then ask.... will anybody interested in my story be slogging through this library of boring stories that feature mostly people making a lame attempt at thumping their chest?

I have used press releases and - depending upon the item - I might get a tiny amount of traffic.  Certainly not $360 worth!

However, a submission to reddit or slashdot could yield tens to hundreds of thousands of visitors in a few days as your story spreads to blogs, other websites, facebook and more.

Bottom line... there are two factors at play.... The intensity of interest that your story can generate and the viral power of where you present it to people.

A story has to be really really really really good to get traction - not exactly press release type content but viral type content instead.  But, if it does, you can get fantastic traffic.

Go to these sites and look at what is getting top attention.  Then ask... Can I beat that by a significant margin.  If answer is "no" then don't waste your time.  If answer is "YES!" then maybe one story out of ten will do what you hope it will.

That's my experience.

[DanielFreedman]

It's extremely unlikely that a single press release will be a significant driver of traffic to web pages. I send out weekly press releases and get anywhere from 100 to 300 page views from 1,000 to 1,500 backlinks. This suggests that many aggregation sites have written rules that say something like : "publish to the site any press release from PR Web that contains the word _______ in the _________."

PR Web has a very high domain authority and established relationships with Yahoo News and other sites. To me, that's the real value -- along with carefully chosen anchor text in a well written press release. In the last few weeks, I've had online pick ups from The Wall Street Journal, The Times of India, and several other first tier outlets. But most are from marginal sites.

Still, the weekly press releases are paying off. I can see the results on SERPs. But this is a long term strategy that depends on spending several hours each week crafting the press release and distribution list. Expecting a single press release to cause a anything other than a small bump  in page views of a landing page is almost certainly hoping for way  too much....especially if it's little beyond a routine product launch.

Here's the real problem. Almost all  press releases suck.  They contain nothing remotely newsworthy and will just annoy the recipients, in the unlikely event human eyes ever see it. So make sure your press release doesn't suck.  Or don't send it.

Also, pick up the phone and talk  to a human a PR Web and ask if there are bulk discounts available.

As for the low end services, I don't think much of them. Distribution is often little beyond spamming the info@ inbox. At the other other end of spectrum is Marketwire, which often distributes directly to opted-in reporters. (PR Web offers something similar at additional cost.)

I've also gotten huge traffic from Reddit, Stumbleupon and guest blog posts. The guest blog posts delivered lower volume but higher quality traffic.

So tactics other than a press release may be a better use of your time and money, especially if you have to hire a copywriter on top of paying the PR Web fee.

[EGOL]

Don't be suprised if you spend $360 and get nothing at all.

    I agree!

[trader247]

Whether or not to do a press release is a question I keep getting conflicting information on. A couple of years ago pre-Panda seems like they were more useful. Now it seems that a lot of news aggregators can be billed as duplicant content and have lost what little of the link juice they may have still had.

Now if you have a truly news worthy story than indeed it may get picked up and reap benefits, but how often does one really have newsworthy material? I have looked into PRweb and they have a program for unlimited releases for one year for $3995. If one had newsworthy material on a weekly basis this would appear to be a good deal. However, if the content is not newsworthy or the content is released every couple of months then this would not be such a great deal.

To research whether or not the press releases where worth it or not from PRweb, I went to their website and looked at several of the recent press releases in the  "Newscenter" section. I found out whom was doing releases and looked at their corporate websites through my SEOmoz browser to check their ranks and most had pretty poor PA and DA even with lots of links.

I wish press releases were a good source to get out the word on a business and help with building SEO links, but I just can't see it for sure one way or another. I will be checking into reddit and slashdot as EGOL suggested. Any other suggestions appreciated.